Forty states saw rises in parents citing religious or other personal concerns for not vaccinating their young children.
The number of kids whose caregivers are opting them out of routine childhood vaccines has reached an all-time high, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday, potentially leaving hundreds of thousands of children unprotected against preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough.
The report did not dive into the reasons for the increase, but experts said the findings clearly reflect Americans’ growing unease about medicine in general.
“There is a rising distrust in the health care system,” said Dr. Amna Husain, a pediatrician in private practice in North Carolina, as well as a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Vaccine exemptions “have unfortunately trended upward with it.”
Nature is wrong.
A species CAN regress.
Kinda odd to think technology, the thing meant to propel us further, has a lot of uses to hold some people (a lot) back
The idea that evolution is always progress is incorrect.
It’s more like a random walk where adaptable changes are more likely to continue and maladaptive changes are more likely to die out.
But we live in a society where we artificially keep maladaptive humans alive to reproduce, and even tend to have them reproduce at a higher rate than the members of society that are most adaptable.
In theory this could be an issue if we were going to depend on adaptive changes to human biological and environmental developments for continued success.
In reality, it’s not going to matter as within a generation we’re going to have effectively infinitely scalable AI which is more adaptable than the average human and will offset the growth in maladaptive humans relative to adaptable.
Which will still not matter, as within a century the various debts we as a species are taking on will likely have inescapable consequences that doom us all, at best our cultural legacy living on with the continuation of AI that is adaptable to the environmental hellscape we leave behind.
Non-random survival of randomly varying replicators, according to Richard Dawkins.
I think it is just evolution in action with kids unfortunately paying the price. There are many parental Darwin awards being readied.
Social regression is necessary for genetic evolution. Some of us will not make it to find out.
People misunderstanding evolution constantly always confused the shit out of me lmfao.
Of course species regress. It’s how extinctions happen lmfao. Also 95% of evolution is what women of the species think looks good enough to bang. Sometimes that means you mean drown when it rains lmfao. Looking at all of you snub nosed monkeys and traumatic enseminators.
They warned about these people back in the 1930s and we didn’t listen.
Religious exemptions need to be banned outright throughout the United States.
Actively withholding your child from receiving vaccines should be grounds for losing custody.
The first amendment protects them here. However, it does not automatically grant them access to government services such as school and welfare. Our focus shouldn’t be so narrow that we forget to protect the people who children are incapable of being vaccinated. So denying these people access to school or government facilities is always an option we should look into.
The first amendment protects them here.
That depends on the court, and on how broadly the relevant rule is written. It’s a hell of a claim to say that my religion must exempt me from laws that apply to others, and that’s exactly the sort of claim being advanced when we say that our religion requires us to not do [things that our religion says nothing about].
A relevant precedent, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, reached in 1905 regarding the constitutionality of compulsory vaccination law, held that individual liberty is not absolute and that the public interest can justify narrowly subjecting it to the authority of the state. (note that this ruling was narrowly about public health authority and its enforceability, and the stakes of the dispute were that if Jacobson didn’t want to be vaccinated, he would be made to pay a fine and nowhere was child custody ever questioned)
The Court held that “in every well ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand” and that “[r]eal liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own [liberty], whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”
Personally I agree there shouldn’t be religious exemptions on vaccines, that the only cases that justify non-vaccinated kids attending schools would be medical justifications, not religious ones. Allowing non-medical people to carve unscientific loopholes in best public health praxis because they feel like Jesus or Cthulu (neither of whom said to not get vaccines) wouldn’t want that basically means, if you extend that reasoning to its logical end, that when I say I have a religion and I tell you it means that law cannot apply to me or else it violates 1A, that no law can be consistently made to apply to anyone. …and when it can’t be made to apply to everyone equally, expect it to be applied, forcefully, to people of the wrong faith, or of the wrong race, or of the wrong caste.
A lot of these anti-vaxxers would be fine with not educating their kids.
OTOH, a bunch of them would just want to educate them at some sort of vaccine-free school or something, which they would presume would get government money. As long as they don’t get money…
Sadly, I would guess that a challenge against religious exemption would be decided against on first amendment grounds by SCOTUS.
Which is madness. If we’re at the point where abortion can’t be found in the federal Constitution, then vaccine opt outs shouldn’t be derived from the first amendment.
You could have just said you don’t understand the first amendment. What exactly do you think the freedom of religion part is about?
Ritual sacrifices of animals and humans are banned in the US in spite of that. Seems fair to ban “religious exemptions” to vaccinations on the same grounds. There’s really no strong theological basis anyway for saying no to vaccines.
People shouldn’t be able to just say “it’s my religion” and get a free pass on anything and everything. If we want to keep the exemptions, then we should require theological basis and proof of “sincerely held belief”.
What if my religion mandates killing everyone over the age of 60?
Could I get away with it because of freedom of religion?
Vaccine exemptions should not exist at all unless a physician (MD or DO, not a naturopath or chiropractor) cites a reason why the vaccine should not be administered.
There are many unscrupulous MD/DOs that will happily compromise their morals for a quick buck. In my opinion they should lose their license, but it usually takes a while and they can do a lot of damage before then.
You can’t keep the determined from self harm. All you can do is hope a few roadblocks will deter the half-hearted.
You missed a few letters there
Shit, you’re right. Edited.
What are we to do when a parent brings in a paper covered with Bible verses?
The sad reality is you can get away with saying whatever stupid bullshit you want as long as you add “because God says so” at the end of the sentence. It’s the ultimate thought terminating cliche.
If someone commits a murder, “God told me to” is not a valid legal argument. They’ll still be prosecuted. This should be the same. People can practice their religion however they want until it starts causing suffering to others.
God told me to
Yeah, we also need to bring back sanitariums.
Starting quoting Greek and Hebrew at them?
That means I’d have to learn Green and Hebrew.
I don’t know why Christians don’t
Wait shamans are calling themselves physicians now?
Another pandemic, let’s goooo!
nooooOOOOOO
It can’t possibly have any relationship to morons like Florida’s Surgeon General citing bogus claims and vaccine efficacy denialism could it?
Those bogus claims weren’t stupid, they were malicious.
However you classify them, they are deadly to many people.
Denying children healthcare should result in a loss of custody.
Charging for a child’s health care should result in a prison sentence.
Most vaccines are free for people who need them
The pharmaceutical companies just give them away out of the goodness of their hearts?
They probably use their massive profits from private insurance claims to subsidize their patient assistance programs, so yes they do give them away, but not out of the goodness of their hearts.
So… actually that’s not the case. They’re only free at the point of sale. The government buys them. They’ve made money on every single one.
Not actually surprising given how many people distrust the health-care system in US. I wonder why that might be…
Vaccines are actually one of the parts of the US healthcare system which works well. There is no excuse for vaccine skepticism other than stupidity.
Vaccines work too well for their own good in some respects. They are so good that most people don’t remember the bad old days when these diseases ran rampant. People think “measles” and say “so you get some sores for a few days and then fully recover, no biggie.” They hear “whooping cough” and say “you just cough for a bit, so what?”
Too many people don’t recall the horrors these diseases inflicted. I count myself among those who don’t recall first hand, but I’ve read enough accounts to be thankful that I haven’t had to experience this.
Also, the anti-vax movement started small. They stopped getting shots and the world didn’t end. This was actually because everyone else was still supplying herd immunity, but they spun it as “see how you don’t need vaccines?”
As more and more people joined, the herd immunity started to falter. Now, it’s breaking down entirely and diseases once thought gone are making a comeback tour.
And all because these people would rather trust someone online with no medical experience, but who tells them what they want to hear rather than actual doctors.
When I was in highschool there was a girl in my class whose religion forbade basically all medicine and she had a really bad case of whooping cough.
It was awful, I remember feeling really terrible for her she sounded like she was in a lot of pain and discomfort every day. No kids should be forced to go through that
Right wing propaganda?
The opioid crisis? Opaque costs for anything?
This is like saying you don’t trust your municipal tap water because of fracking in Kansas.
When you ask the price of anything at a hospital or even a pharmacy, even simple things like how much a tetanus shot costs, you’re usually met with a “the insurance usually covers it” in the US. Or “it depends”. You’ll only know how much it costs after everything is done.
For those wondering genuine reasons to support this statement, remember the horrific things the US government did to black people and native Americans.
The CIA and such were having a field day doing whatever unethical shit they wanted.
Tuskagee experiment? (Giving black people syphilis) https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study
MK Ultra? (Drugging black people with cocaine and mishrooms) https://chacruna.net/cia_research_exploited_black_americans_mkultra/
Mass sterilization of Native American women: https://time.com/5737080/native-american-sterilization-history/
It goes on and on. Yeah, we have good reason to distrust the US Government. Unfortunately, we also have lots of reasons to trust them as well. This isn’t a post “gubbmint bad”. This is just “we can understand why some people think the way they do because of the actions of others”.
This isn’t a post “gubbmint bad”.
Oh, but it IS.
What would ‘trustworthy’ look like? Kinda like now. What are you doing? Still distrusting. Why try to be trustworthy if it’s a no-win equation?
Maybe creating a health care system that won’t force you into bankruptcy if you break a leg?
This is a huge part of it. The money is so big it gives them a motive and a reason for people to be suspicious.
I mean I think they are wrong. But not everyone is going to agree and go along with rational thinking.
Too many people ignore the fact that the government isn’t 1 entity, but several. Each division has its own goals, and some of those divisions care more about the people they’re supposed to serve than others.
I think distrusting pharmaceutical companies and being skeptical of excessive tests is very different from distrusting medical science. I don’t have to trust my health insurance company to know that vaccines are on solid evidence and safe to get.
If it’s a new vaccine? I’ll apply more skepticism, but that means looking into it. The explanation of the mRNA method for COVID was very transparent and supported by university academics. It was novel and quite impressive.
Plus, just in general, you need to be wary of side effects. I’m way more cautious about new medications after going through the gambit with psychological medications and their side effects. As I get older, more health procedures become elective vs necessary (e.g. hair regrowth products), and it’s important to think critically about it.
I distrust the medical system too… But there is no alternative, so while I choose not to use it when I don’t absolutely need it, my kids are vaccinated and I’m sick right now and I take the medicine my doctor gave me. If a legitimate alternative came, I would go for it, but it doesn’t exist.
I trust it, but only as far as I trust anything else. I want evidence and reasoning. If I’m being recommended a procedure that seems fishy, I’m going to get a second or third opinion. I’m going to use reputable sources to research it.
The old company I worked for had a saying in the engineering department, “Trust but verify”. I think it applies really well here.
There is a rising distrust in the health care system
I blame all the bullshit fees and tests that hospitals, pharmacy companies, and medical insurance companies have joined forces to do to milk more money out of ppl. Ever since the health care system started to chase profits instead of caring for people, this distrust was bound to happen.
People know that the health care system is trying to make money off of you, not take care of you. So they don’t know which medical advice to trust and which medical advice was given in order to make money.
This.
It is easy, and justified to blame Trump for being anti-vax to have gotten as mainstream as it has…
… but that was only able to gain traction in the first place because people are being offered the choice between healing and going broke.
At some level, conscious or not, this is the masses rebelling against a system that has actively harmed them.
Unfortunately, the outlet for this rebellion actively harms them and is decidedly not in their best interests. It’s going to take at least a generation to rebuild that trust, and our medical system is going to fight tooth and nail to keep that trust ruined in the name of maximum profits,
That’s the only way I can sympathize with anyone who decides not to vax their children. I still do but I can understand the reason not to for this reason. I personally don’t think it’s gotten as far as to be detrimental to my health to still trust the vaxxines but I can see it becoming like that one day. It’s amazing how evil and complicit people will become in the face of making more money.
This study won’t answer the question of if this applies to other countries, but I expect it would. Covid sure brought a lot of anti vax people into the limelight. Yet none of the issues you mentioned are a problem in my country. That’s all free (except for the hospital parking).
I do distrust them to properly submit claims to my insurer. Otherwise I don’t have a lot of issues with providers. They may be prone to order “unnecessary” tests but I genuinely think that comes from a desire to actually help people [without regard for their finances].
Big pharma can absolutely choke on its own shit however.
I hate these articles that give no contextual numbers. What was the exemption rate before? The article doesn’t bother to tell us.
I remember how I felt about antivaxxers a decade ago. Drove me crazy, people making bad sweeping decisions based on gut feeling and fear instead of trying to understand the medicine and how it benefited them. I often tried pretty hard to convince the ones I knew personally to reconsider.
Nowadays I just try not to get yelled at for my opinions while I watch things fall apart.
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I feel bad for the immunocompromised and the children who can’t make their own choices. I don’t feel bad for the nutbag parents who will see their children suffer with preventable diseases. I’ll even likely chuckle when I hear of a death.
To be fair my child’s daycare asked for papers from the doctor every time they went, often enough it was forgotten, and you could just sign saying the child’s exempt to not have to deal with the papers.
Religious extremist (to the point of not accept vaccines at least) potentially extinguishing is so Darwinistic…
If only they didn’t spread diseases to others, that would be true, but they are also going to kill a lot of innocent people this way.
This. If it doesn’t spread then it can’t mutate. Vaccines for things like smallpox are highly effective but they’re not 100% and as the disease mutates the effectiveness goes down.
Thanks Joe rohan
Joe of the Men of Rohan, ally to the King of Gondor.
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